The problem-plagued Krestovsky Stadium in St. Petersburg continues to cause headaches for World Cup organizers. With just weeks to go before June’s Confederations Cup, an event meant to be a warm up for the 2018 soccer championship, it emerged that the grass on the pitch was unfit for matches.
The pitch at the $800-million, 68,000-seat venue, which took ten years to build, a process fraught with scandal, had bare spots and was in such a sorry condition that home team Zenit spoke out publicly. At press time, officials had moved Zenit matches to another venue and were replacing the turf at the state-of-the-art stadium.
Sergei Kislyak, 66, Russian ambassador to Washington, is on his way out after a run of nearly nine years. His final months in the posting were plagued by fallout from “undisclosed contacts” with staffers of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign – apparently to establish a back channel between Presidents Trump and Putin. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was forced to resign over the affair.
Kislyak’s replacement will be a former defense ministry official, Anatoly Antonov, who was sanctioned by the European Union and Canada over his role in the Ukraine crisis, and who has held the post of deputy foreign minister only since December 2016.
At press time, Antonov’s appointment was being confirmed by Russia’s parliament.
Ballet lovers will be excited to learn that not one but two Russian movies about classical dance will be released this summer. One, Bolshoi, is a rags to riches tale of a provincial girl from the coal town of Shakhtyorsk trying to make it big in Moscow’s legendary theater. It was produced by Valery Todorovsky and stars Alisa Freindlikh, who portrays a relentless and sometimes cruel veteran ballet instructor.
The second film is a documentary that traces the life and career of Sergei Polunin, a Ukrainian prodigy who was the youngest principal dancer in the history of the Royal Ballet, but who quit because he said he lacked artistic freedom.
Polunin, perhaps the most gifted dancer of his generation, worked for several years in Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theater and is now exploring movies. He also wants to revolutionize the ballet system, which he says often traps young dancers in a restrictive life before they even start school, and rarely offers them an opportunity to explore the world beyond classical ballet.
In a fresh blow to independent journalism in Russia, a longtime editor of Vedomosti, the respected business and politics daily, was replaced by a new hire who formerly worked for the state media outlets Channel 1 and RIA Novosti.
Editor Tatiana Lysova was said to have left on her own initiative, but her departure could be the last link in a chain of events spurred by a new Russian law forbidding foreign nationals or companies from holding more than a 20 percent stake in Russian media companies. As a result of that law, ownership changed hands at Vedomosti, which has published some of the most biting and thoughtful criticism of Kremlin policies and Russian affairs in recent years.
Lysova’s replacement is Ilya Bulavin, whom the publication’s board of directors chose in a 4-3 vote over Yekaterina Derbilova, a candidate proposed by both Lysova and the current editorial advisory board.
A group of linguists has created a new pan-Slavic language, Interslavic, with the idea of connecting speakers of Slavic languages who tend to use English to communicate, despite major similarities between their languages.
The go-between language targets Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Ukrainian and other languages and dialects in the region, according to the website of the project, which was launched by Czech linguist Vojtech Merunka and Croatian anthropologist Emil Hersak.
For more information about the constructed language see:
neoslavonic.org
A 1901 villa on the French Riviera that once belonged to Mathilde Kschessinska, the ballerina who was the lover of Emperor Nicholas II prior to his marriage, is on sale for over $32 million after extensive restoration.
The white mansion was bought by Kschessinska’s future husband, Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich, shortly before the Bolshevik Revolution, and the two lived there for over a decade before it had to be sold to cover the ballerina’s gambling debts.
The house was bought by a wealthy Italian aristocrat, Princess Odescalchi, who in 1980 bequeathed it to her servant. Since the retainer didn’t have the funds to maintain the giant 14-room property, it fell into disrepair. Then an anonymous Russian billionaire bought it and restored the façade while redesigning most of the interior.
A new ichthyosaur discovered in the Volga River basin has been named after Vladimir Lenin. Russian scientists, together with foreign colleagues, have published their research on Leninia stellans, an ancient species that was six meters long and lived some 125 million years ago.
The animal’s remains, along with another find on the Volga, the plesiosaurus named Luskhan itilensis, were found by paleontologist Gleb Uspensky. “Leninia is the genus, and stellans (brilliant) is the species,” he told Gazeta.ru. “If we find another ichthyosaur in this genus, we’ll name him something else. For example ‘Lenin smiling.’”
Russia has test-flown a new passenger plane, the MS-21, meant to compete with the popular (and more expensive) Boeing 737 and Airbus 320 on short- and medium-haul flights. It is said to have a faster cruising speed than its competitors, and more legroom, according the Irkut Corporation, the designer.
Apparently some 312 orders have already been placed for the plane, including 50 by Russia’s flagship airline, Aeroflot. According to the RBK news agency, however, to break even on the project the company must sell about 900 planes.
This could be a daunting task, considering that Russia’s most recent new airplane model, the Sukhoi Superjet, was not a great success: only 100 planes have been produced in the last decade.
The MS-21 took about 245 billion rubles and a decade to develop, with the idea of replacing aging Tupolev jets. It will have a list price of $91 million. Additional testing remains before the plane can be put into production.
The Yekaterinburg History Museum received dozens of resumes after advertising for a pigeon chaser.
The museum in this Urals city announced on its Facebook page that its façade was suffering from pigeon droppings, then warned people not to feed the birds and offered a R20,000 ($340) monthly salary for an anti-pigeon enthusiast. The vacancy was filled in a week.
«Мы надеемся, что этот человек все-таки воспримет такой мягкий приговор как, может быть, знак того, что в этом мире есть милосердие и что есть источник этого милосердия — Бог».
“We hope that this man will see this light sentence, perhaps, as a sign that there is mercy in this world and that the source of this mercy is God.”
«Не я инициатор этой рыночной экономики. Это пришло из России. И мы вынуждены подстраиваться под эту экономику».
“I’m not the one who initiated all this market economy. That came from Russia. And we’re left to adapt to this economy.”
«Плюс у нас огромная территория. Если бы мы были очень маленькой страной, наверное, мы бы раньше задумались, потому что земли бы не осталось, все завалено бы было мусором, но у нас, слава богу, территория большая».
“Ours is a huge territory. If we were a very small country, we would probably have started thinking about it earlier, since we would have run out of land; everything would have been covered in garbage. But, thank God, we have a large territory.”
«Любому облеченному властью человеку нужно подавлять в себе соблазн объяснять художнику, что он должен делать».
“Any person in power should suppress his desire to lecture the artist on what he should do.”
«Поджоги балконов, метание зеленки – это не средство политической борьбы, а преступления. <...> Виновные должны быть выявлены и наказаны».
“Setting balconies on fire, splashing zelyonka (ointment) on people – that’s not a method of political struggle, that’s a crime… Those guilty should be found and punished.”
«Вы все смотрите репортажи, где видно, что в московских квартирах находятся и тигры, и львы. Мы часто гуляем на детских площадках вместе с леопардами, это каждую неделю происходит».
“You all watch TV reports that show tigers and lions in Moscow apartments. We often find ourselves at children’s playgrounds together with leopards, this happens every week.”
Oleg Vidov, a Soviet heartthrob who defected to the West during the Cold War, passed away in Los Angeles. He was 73.
Vidov became a professional actor in his 30s, after a childhood of traveling and working at various manual labor jobs to support his ailing mother. He graduated from the Gerasimov Cinematography Institute in 1966 and was repeatedly cast in the role of a noble gentleman, including in several foreign pictures, such as Hagbard and Signe, a hit Scandinavian film.
As he lived in Germany as a child, Vidov spoke German fluently. After fleeing the Soviet Bloc to Austria in 1983, he lived in several European countries during the 1980s. Eventually, he left for the US after meeting American journalist Joan Borsten. There he starred in hits like Red Heat and Wild Orchid, and also ran a drug rehabilitation facility, as well as a production company promoting Soviet animation.
Georgy Grechko, a multi-talented Soviet cosmonaut who once held the record for most time spent in orbit, passed away at 85 from heart problems.
Born in Leningrad, Grechko became a military engineer (his scientific work focused on lunar landers) before being recruited for the space program. He was selected as a cosmonaut when he was 34 and made it to orbit nearly a decade later, eventually going to space three times.
Grechko became a prominent face of the Soviet space program and worked to popularize it after he retired, speaking publicly, hosting a TV show, and publishing articles and a memoir, Cosmonaut No. 34.
Another cosmonaut, Viktor Gorbatko, also died this spring. He was one of the first men to be trained alongside Yuri Gagarin, under the veil of secrecy that shrouded the lead-up to the first manned space flight.
Gorbatko was a young pilot chosen in 1960 from among 3,000 candidates. He went into space on three occasions, twice receiving the prestigious Hero of the Soviet Union award. He was 82.
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